The Light that Burns Twice As Bright Burns Half As Long
Over these several years since the end of the 2010’s, I have written and rewritten a “Best of the Decade” list that has yet to be—and probably never will be—published. It’s been too long, no one cares about those days anymore. But regardless of whether anyone other than my closest friends and family will ever know what was on it (because I force the subject on them in inescapable holiday conversations), I can reveal what was #1. In every revision, through every iteration, the greatest album I heard in the 2010’s has to be…
Too Bright
Perfume Genius
Art Pop | 2014
Prior to 2014, my familiarity with Mike Hadreas’ musical project, Perfume Genius, was passing at best, as was most of the world’s. He had constructed two incredibly lo-fi collections of piano arrangements, 2010’s Learning and 2012’s Put Your Back N 2 It, both of which were critically acclaimed and are brilliant in their own way, but worked more as pieces of ambient bedroom recording that happened to take the structure of songs.
But by 2014, Hadreas had gone through tremendous life changes: he got clean, began treating his Chron’s appropriately, and started a new (and still going) relationship. It was time for his music to reflect these changes, and to provide a backdrop for the many things, both terrifying and joyful, that he and many other gay men experience on a regular basis. More than just output from a musical project, this was going to be a heralding flagship statement.
I Decline
Acting as the prelude to both the album and the later single, “Grid,” “I Decline” showcases both the sparse production and spare lyricism that highlights Hadreas’ personal growth as well as his hyper-talent for stunning double-take poetry. “I can see for miles / The same old line / No thanks / I decline,” he begins, describing his ongoing battle with drug addiction, a world that is consistently tempting, but one he has become strong enough to resist, or, decline, as it were. The word, decline, also has a strong double meaning to say “fall into disrepair;” as Hadreas’ health problems led him to write the second line, “Angel just above the grid…” (grid being both a euphemism for plane, like, this plane of existence, but also an old acronym, GRID, for the AIDS virus before it was defined as AIDS—a comparison Hadreas will use throughout the album) “…Open, smiling, reaching out / That’s alright / I decline.” It is a stunningly bare, exposed song that is the perfect introduction to Too Bright.
Queen
“Don’t you know your queen?” Hadreas asks, as if astonished by your ignorance, to open the most ornate and lustrous pop moment of his career to that point, and, to this day, his most popular. Soon accompanied by an old electric organ line, detuned and reverbed throughout her massive reception hall, the queen that Hadreas embodies is as regal and royal as she is utterly unforgiving. The opening line inspires listeners to embrace their queerness: “Ripped, heaving, flower bloom at my feet;” these are not the most beautiful adjectives, but this is no dainty princess in need of a knight, this is a queen, brutishly in control of her domain, unafraid to express herself openly. “Cracked, peeling, riddled with disease,” Hadreas continues, bringing up the stereotype that being gay inherently means being at a higher risk of AIDS and other STIs, to the point where we are not allowed to donate life-saving blood (the Red Cross would literally rather have people die of blood loss than allow LGBT people to participate in charity).
And then there’s the chorus, and dear god is it wonderful: “No family is safe when I sashay.” Taking no prisoners and giving no fucks, this queen would rather destroy a family than be anyone but herself. In an interview about the song Hadreas said:
“Sometimes I see faces of blank fear when I walk by…if these fucking people want to give me some power—if they see me as some sea witch with penis tentacles that are always prodding and poking and seeking to convert the muggles—well, here she comes.”
Goddamn!
During this, the electric organ expands into a beautiful Yanni-esque synth orchestra, grunts accentuate heavy beats, and an eerie bent vocal sample rings out over Hadreas’ wordless vocalizations. It is one of the very best drops in pop music, and once you hear, it will be stuck in your head forever. My god, this might be the greatest pop song of the 2010’s.
Fool
One of the first experimental tracks on the album, “Fool” is a not-so-subtle commentary on straight women using gay men as props and unknowingly falling into harmful stereotypes while claiming to be an ally. “I made your dress, I laid it out / On the couch you bought, that I picked out,” Hadreas begins, recounting a story from his own life where he “camped it up” in order to make other people feel more comfortable, and allows them to presume he has superior fashion and style. “I titter and coo like a cartoon / I congratulate you, then I leave the room;” he has become this woman’s gay butler, called on to help her feel important and stylish, the shooing him when her other friends show up.
There’s a break between verses that is a pure ambient piece. Hadreas’ voice climbs wordlessly higher and higher, pleading to be seen as more than just some camp stereotype. But note, this happens after “I leave the room.” It is a beautiful moment, but it is one he hides from everyone in the world, his plea to be seen as a human being and not just a prop is one he makes only in secret. The second verse picks up exactly where the first left off, completely abandoning the ambient orchestra, for Mike to continue his roleplay as the gay fool. “I do a little move to a giggling flute / I preen and I plume like a buffoon.”
No Good
“No Good” returns to the opener’s bare piano and voice arrangement to continue the album’s theme of the marginalization of homosexual love. “There’s no gentle way, there’s no safe place for the heart to hang,” Hadreas begins, calmly laying out what will shortly become a desperately tragic scene. “Am I meant to fray the edge? On the outside looking in? All used up, but never used enough;” in a world where homosexual love is not to be shown publicly, it can only be expressed in the most base way; “to me love was always a hidden thing, stolen a moment at a time / A feeling only held for a little while, and then ripped from your arms like a child.” In the end, Hadreas gives into his desire to show his love publicly, but doing so ends horrifically, as is too often the case in many places around the world: “Traced in the park / An outline in chalk / Where I took his hand in mine / For a little while, everything was alright.” Even the smallest expression of queer love publicly can be met with death.
My Body
In one of the most personal songs about his health, Hadreas recounts what he feels when he actually sits and thinks about his physical body, particularly during flare-ups from his Chron’s disease. The plucked bass, and dark, low synth give the entire song an ever-present dread. There is a bizarre interlude where Hadreas delivers his lines in a alien-like falsetto over blasts of doom-laden synths, giving the section a full Cronenberg body horror effect. the repeating idea of Hadreas “wearing” his body delves into a much deeper philosophy about what we are as humans: are we these physical things that get sick and die, or are we brilliant minds trapped in decaying meat suits? This larger question of what even is a body leads into…
Don’t Let Them In
Here, Hadreas tells the story of a trans person, rejected by heteronormative society, and who has to hide their true selves inside a “fake” body to please the general public: “I am too tired to hold myself carefully / And wing when they circle the fact that I’m trapped in this body.” In a beautiful, lilting section of the song, Hadreas describes a long forgotten past where some indigenous American cultures believed gender-variant people to be beautiful and particularly blessed by the spiritual world: “In an alternate ribbon of time, my dances were sacred / My lisp was evidence I spoke for both spirits.” He ends with the admission that some people may not have backward, harmful views of trans people, but their lack of true understanding is still too much to bear: “Don’t let them in / They’re well-intended / But each comment rattles some deep, ancient queen.”
Grid
GRID, before HIV or AIDS, was common lexicon in the medical world, and stood for “Gay-Related Immune Deficiency”, and its disturbingly common use in medical circles in the 80’s pointed to the overt suppression of medical research and treatment for the disease, as well as the stigma that fueled the crisis to pandemic proportions. Because it was viewed as “the gay disease,” it could be intentionally ignored by the United States government and their favorite bigoted, alzheimeritic president, Ronald Reagan.
Hadreas recalls the opening lines from “I Decline”: “I can see / See for miles / The same old line,” referencing another group the government used as sacrifices to the AIDS crisis, addicts. Continuing, he sings, “there is no angel above the grid / Maybe baby, this is it.” Here Hadreas’ character can no longer decline the invitation of the Angel, as he slips into the end stage of AIDS, as now he knows there’s nothing on the other side for people like him, his very existence rejected by America as sinful. This is it. This is all there is.
The pain and anger of an entire generation is expressed through the aggressive production and songwriting: a driving, ever-present synth loop sounds like something straight from an 80’s sci-fi chase sequence, while pounding, war-like drums and tribalistic background chants and yelps prepare the listener for battle to avenge the millions lost by hateful, deliberate inaction.
Longpig
In a beautiful yet horrifying fantasy, Hadreas imagines a world where men are used by women purely as fertilizer for their gynocentric utopia’s crops. “Longpig” (the word itself) is a euphemism for human meat, and Hadreas uses it as central to the image he paints: “we buried the meat for Mama.” The call and response, shouted and cooed over another Moroder-inspired synth loop and syncopated hand claps, sees the women on watch, guarding for any incursions from those who might try to disrupt their absolute peace: “Sister! / We see / Mind the flag! / Everything.” It’s a short but effective piece of world building.
I’m a Mother
In what is by a wide margin the most experimental song on the album, Hadreas completely stops trying to write anything crowd-pleasing, and instead creates a pitch-shifted ambient piece where, in a demon voice, he sings in vague allusions about male pregnancy and birth. It may be an utterly bizarre piece of near-drone, but from this artistic dipping and dabbling came the songwriting ideas for the rest of the album. Without “I’m a Mother” there is no Too Bright, as writing and recording something so unhinged allowed Hadreas to give himself the permission to write freely. The instrumentation is thick, moody, and a little gross, with very-distant choirs appearing far back in the mix. It may not sound like anything else on the album, or anything else at all, but it’s nasty and defiant and bold.
Too Bright
To be perfectly honest, this song makes me cry. Like, ugly cry. The kind where the world actually feels lighter after you’re done. Using his most beautiful piano arrangement, Hadreas laments a past, dead relationship where he felt more like an object to be used by the other person: “I’ll try / I’ll stay / Hung and drawn.” It’s a gorgeously sad piece, with Hadreas’ stunning piano accented by background noises of deep sighs, totally immersing you in this drowning world. Occasionally, strings break though, trying to lighten the mood, but instead adding even more melancholy. “I’m fine / I’ll stay / Hung and drawn / Laid upon / Each night.”
Then, suddenly, and without warning, a totally exuberant choir and a suite of piccolos appear, completely removing the gloom, utterly banishing the clouds from this world. Finally realizing his self-worth, he sees the glorious, golden sun, and it is him. “Too bright.” Yes, too bright to be caged and ignored. Too bright to be relegated to second-class citizenry. Too bright to be unseen anymore.
All Along
The closing track is the recovery from the dead relationship of the title track. Here, Hadreas is boldly proclaiming that people don’t need to understand him, or any gay man for that matter, just to see them as humans on equal ground. “What drives me to my man? / Earthly or divine or otherwise, is no business of mine / You wasted my time.” By denying LGBT people the space to love openly and freely, the world is literally wasting the short time they have on this earth, needing to work to hide who they are, when they could be spending that energy doing…ANYTHING ELSE! “Deep down I never did feel right / Even now sometimes—that feeling is a lie.” He, like so many of us, was trained to believe that falling in love with a man was wrong, so feeling that feeling isn’t “right,” but that feeling itself is a lie. Love is love.
He ends the song over an old-school, 60’s Dimension Records, wall-of-sound-style blues-folk tune as he sings his main thesis: “I don’t need your love / I don’t need you to understand / I need you to listen.” We, as a group, and really as a society, don’t have time to waste anymore, with people trying to explain how or why we exist. We just need you to know that we do, accept that fact, and move on. We did it ourselves, some of us over longer periods and harsher conditions than others, but we all got here, so now it’s time everyone else caught up.
Much of my love for this album stems from my own personal experience and timing. Why I place it so highly among the many albums I have on repeat in the deep catalog of my life has to do with its themes being presented when I was going through my own journey of self-discovery, and of coming out. That there was something this unique and this beautiful and this fragile to describe all of the uncomfortable moments of that odyssey towards self-acceptance was both astounding and immensely reassuring to me.
Mike Hadreas used the massive critical acclaim of Too Bright and huge popular success of “Queen” to move into a more pop-accessible space. Follow-up’s No Shape and Set My Heart On Fire Immediately were musically brilliant, commercially successful hits (well, for someone in the queer alt-pop space anyway), but to me—and I repeat: to me—they lost something, that hint of outsider-ness and dark turmoil that made so much of Too Bright so personal to me. Some of that has been reclaimed by his still-critically-acclaimed-but-much-less-popular 2022 album, Ugly Season, particularly with it’s deliciously bizarre single, “Pop Song,” that is definitely not like any pop song I’ve ever heard.
Perfume Genius created something that truly is, for lack of a better word, genius. Too Bright shows a kind of mastery of both form and function, challenging and adventurous while still being insular and intimate. It is a kind of exquisitely brave nervous breakdown caught on tape for all to hear, with old fashioned melodies and moments of sheer pop brilliance serving as the small, rare respite from the terror of living every day in a world that, mostly, hates who you are. If this album serves any kind of message, it’s “don’t be afraid anymore.”
🏳️🌈No family is safe when I sashay.🏳️🌈
